![[Credit: LeRoy Cook]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/IMG_2791.jpg?w=534&h=462&crop=1 "The Safety Triangle: Balancing Skill, Knowledge, and Judgment in Flying")
![A SubSonex personal jet in aerobatic flight. Thea design will expand with a two-place model kit in the months ahead. [Credit: Sonex Aircraft]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/SubSonex_Acro.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Sonex Reopens")
![A CubCrafter’s Carbon Cub headed to Sun ‘n Fun in the time-honored tradition. [Credit: CubCrafters]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Carbon-Cub-UL.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Sun ‘n Fun 2026 Highlights: Electric RV-10, Modular Avionics, and MOSAIC")
![Ten hours of dual instruction in a tailwheel-equipped aircraft is usually required for proficiency. [Credit: AdobeStock]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/AdobeStock_354747155.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Learning How to Drag Your Tail")
![The alternative to bending down as the propeller is pulled through the compression stroke is to keep the back straight and bend the knees slightly, stepping away in a crouch. [Credit: LeRoy Cook]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/IMG_1519-scaled.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Manual Starting Methods")
The Watch List
Is anything more disheartening than dropping a piece of hardware in your airframe and not being able to find it? Yes. A loose nut...
A Hole Where an Airshow Should Be
EAA’s decision to cancel AirVenture 2020 as a precaution against the coronavirus has created a tremendous ripple effect. Not only are your travel and...
Airpark Living
Since the very discovery that such a thing existed, I, like many other pilots, have dreamed of airpark living. For the purposes of this...
Going Around
Gallons of ink have been dedicated—with only minor effect—to figuring out what it is that joins pilots together. But clearly there’s something in the...
A Lesson in Control(s)
This is a story of a simple thing overlooked. It involves a basic concept of aircraft construction and maintenance that I have shared with...
Pilot: The Verb
I pretend to play guitar. To my neighbor’s irritation, I use a real guitar when I pretend, not an air guitar. While learning new...
Flying: Part Science, Part Artform
Many years ago, I had a position in the training department of my regional airline. In addition to the needs of our own airline,...
Just a Trim, Please
Being well out of trim myself at the time, staying busy whirling the little knobbed wheel in the Cessna 150 trainer never appeared overly...
Funny Money
When I was a kid, way back in the 1960s, one of the toughest decisions I had to make was whether to buy a...
Murphy’s Law, Occam’s Razor
Ed, an aerospace engineer, and Bill, a 14th Century philosopher, walk into your workshop…and if you’re smart you’ll let them stay and you’ll hear...
In Case You Missed It
RANS S-19
When new aircraft from two very different designers, in this case Randy Schlitter and Richard VanGrunsven, surface with considerable similarities, consensus about basic design tenets must be blowing in the wind. Certainly Light Sport regs do constrain performance considerations, but human factors are more up for grabs, and that’s where one or another design can truly shine; by Marc Cook.